Only Half of Who I Am
by Skarloey
Summary: Can Brilliant Dynamites Neon fall in love?...WE THINK NOT!!!


::: One Long Note From Christy :::  
  
PLEASE, for the LOVE OF GOD, don't read this if you aren't mature. You have to be able to handle vulgarity, violence (and I didn't mean to make it so damn disgusting, it just happened; comes from writing about BDN), REAL issues of life (death, and, inevitably, masturbation), and the fact that YES, BDN is NOT a virgin. A shock, yes, but it's true!!!  
  
(I know what you're thinking, and yes, I know. He's a sick, hideous, perverse, and ill psychopath. But the truth is...he just has issues. Think: Columbine and DeAnza issues. That's him all over on the Reicher scale...but I intended to fix that!)  
  
But also, you probably shouldn't read if you're just looking for lemons to suck on. (Jeez, you sick people!) It doesn't happen here - well, not *too* graphically. Just focus on BD Neon, okay? I meant for this to be a short, pointless anecdote, and look what happened - a long, meaningful (maybe) story!   
  
And the songs? Some are Verve Pipe and Green Day (my fave!) songs. But I wrote "Lapis Lazuli" (the "wrinkle of steel" one).  
  
And gosh darn it, I didn't devy up the chapters. To hell with it...  
  
Only Half of Who I Am  
  
In this wrinkle of steel I am lost;   
For nothing this desert I've wandered across  
Searching for myself and finding someone else  
It is only half,  
Only half of who I am.  
  
1. What brings you around  
  
From a distance, he watched the humpback steamer crawl over the thin gold horizon cracked dry with ravines. Neon signaled his men.  
  
With whoops and wild cries, they shot down the smaller automobiles.  
  
"We don't need no pissant cars!" he heard from below as they crashed the party, bumper car style. "Waste 'em, boys!"  
  
He smiled. The had been well trained. Bloodthirsty and no mercy...the only way to sparkle. (The only way?)  
  
"Brilliant Dynamites Neon now emerges," he growled, "to take over!" The same line, a thousand times, never sounded so good. A grin growing from ear to ear, he spun his gun on a finger as the Baddies took over the ship with a smooth force, simultaneous action. (Action, slaughter.)  
  
They were something to be proud of. Truly proud. Atrocities they left behind sanctified their presence...  
  
The evening past by in a blur; running through the halls, adrenaline - and inevitably, testosterone - pumping hard through his veins. A few dozen magnum rounds in the control room; a little bloodshed, but no huge deal, right? Besides...they weren't being beautiful. Too bad. He couldn't help but smile at that.  
  
Neon couldn't have been happier that night as he tossed the goods into his safe at home in his steamer. He even sang walking to dinner. A hot bath, a long soak, and a deep, dreaming slumber.  
  
Pure heaven. Until he slipped into the familiar narcolepsy of nightmares.  
  
He dreamt long and hard, not waking for the longest time. As he slept, he whispered out painful words, softly into the night, unknowing, unthinking. Sweat rolled cold down his anvil chest and creased forehead.   
  
The dusty ground billowed up under the wind, feathery and hot.  
  
A child wandered.  
  
He had no name, no alias, but someday he would be known as Neon. Brilliant. Dynamites. Neon.   
  
The rot and the reek in the air whined, tantalizingly, in his ear - Brilliant...Dynamites...Neon...  
  
Something invisible, just out of reach, was trembling before him, and he reached out, and grasped it. He felt the thin embrace of a cold nothingness, loneliness, and his arms collapsed within themselves, and the boy was alone, alone and afraid.  
  
Alone for real.  
  
So that child wandered, and the canyons loomed above him, hurling their shadows long. Sparkling in the setting suns, a small, trickling stream coughed and wheezed, and the ground swallowed it whole.  
  
That child, with no name, watched the ground stain a burgundy-red as he cut himself with a rock. A long, liberate incision, painful, numb, hurting, unfeeling.   
  
Mixed emotions - confusion, hate, anger, despair, regret - swallowed him, just as the dirt swallowed the last of the water and turned dark with his blood.   
  
As he walked heavy steps, he heard the wind sing.  
  
And with every step he realized more and more that he was alone, and the singing wind was his only friend. He yearned for something more than food, something for sustenance. Lifeblood was the only thing, now, lifeblood and power. Drunken power to let live - or kill.  
  
But mostly to kill.  
  
It was a hunger eating his flesh, burning him alive from the inside out. It was going to swallow him...swallow him up...  
  
Borne of the flow of pain, of blood - borne of hatred and loneliness - borne out of the darkness in his soul - and the child crumpled on the ground, alone, afraid, and hungry.   
  
The pain he bore on his back was too heavy, and was suffocating him.  
  
"Saya! Who's was gonna feed the fire, huh?" Voices in the night.  
  
"Waddnt me."  
  
"Neither me."  
  
"Don' lookit meh!"  
  
"I'll do it! You boys are such babies!" With a roar of frustration, the hulking figure stood and stalked off. "Stupid idiots," he muttered under his breath. He touched his arm, and the darkness was slashed away with his light.  
  
On his shoulders loomed two ominous dynamos, striped with neon glory. His bare chest, rippled with power and hard muscle, was framed with an open white vest, leering and frightening.   
  
He tossed fallen river wood like toothpicks across the shore at his men. They cheered, until he shone his light on something that was not quite an animal, that was not wood.  
  
It was the child.  
  
He awoke with a start, the brightness tickling him through his eyelids. He leapt up and scrambled backwards from this huge monster of a man.   
  
The man narrowed his eyes, a terrifying sight indeed. "You! You been listening to us?"  
  
"N - no sir," whimpered the boy. "I en't - I been asleep!" Stammering. Nervousness. Fear?  
  
He took a moment to digest this information. The wheels in his head spun. "Name." An order.  
  
"M - my name?" The boy looked confused. "I - I don't know it."  
  
"Don't know it, huh. Well, I'm Desecartes!" With that, he shoved the boy. "And you do well to remember...I ask for names, I get names." He jerked his collar fiercely. "You remember that, hear me? You ain't being beautiful."  
  
"Y - yes sir!" cried the boy as he braced himself for another hit.  
  
"Come with me." Desecartes dragged him over to the fire. "Lookit what I picked up with me, boys! A little brat..." They laughed. Desecartes sat him down, hard, on a log of wood and gazed at the boy, hard, studying tongues of flames shiver across his small, round face.  
  
"You didn't loose the babyfat yet. Hm. How old?"  
  
"S - seven."  
  
"Seven, 'sir'."  
  
"Sir! Seven sir!"  
  
"That's better..." Desecartes gestured. "You know who we are?"  
The boy gazed around at the men in hard blue suits, masks covering their faces, their pasts. They appeared to be laughing. "I don't know," he whispered, scared.  
  
"You know where we are?"  
  
"L - Lottenburg Canyons - sir?"  
  
"That's right! And this is our turf; I took these men and together we took every rich sandsteamer that came 'round here!" He roared with laughter, wicked laughter. "Cuz we be the Bad Lad Thieves, the magnificent dreadnought raiders! Ain't that right?"  
  
"You gotsat!" Cries, empty promises of something yet to come.  
  
"Yesserebob!"  
  
"Rebob!"  
  
"You do well and remember this face. It's the face of a man named Dark Eyes Desecartes." His voice was hard, his face unsmiling.  
  
"Y - yes sir!"  
  
"Now, we'll figure out what to do about you later. For now you get to sleep, you hear me?"  
  
"Yes sir," he whispered. He stayed awake, laying on the hard sand, for a long time. Afraid they'd come to kill him. He listened to the joking, the talking, the rough words that would become his own. Finally, sleep claimed him, and together they drifted away.   
  
And he never did forget that face.  
  
-  
  
He had had a name. Forgotten, buried, but still there. Somehow it found a way to haunt him, even after all this time. Neon stared at the lights of the Baddies' Coupes disappearing over a dip in the canyon. The Kelly steamer was puffing along quickly, as if it had spotted them.  
  
It was strange.  
  
Such a small scared child he had been! And now look. Had he really changed? All except for size and tone, was he any different than the cowardly little boy with no name, the one who was sick with hunger, sick inside out? Who had forced himself to forget everything! Bury everything, burn everything, forget, forget...  
  
He looked down at his palm. Just a tangible prick of hunger rang out shrilly inside of him. Just a misty memory.  
  
His hand was throbbing. There was a small, faint white scar where he'd been cut. Or had he cut himself?   
  
It was hard to tell. And above it, like the ivory moons, a rough circle like a blister sculpted of twisted skin. It hurt every once in a great while, when things were lonely, quiet and still. Sometimes he imagined the bullet still burning into him. It was the only thing he feared. To believed he feared.  
  
Even now, twenty six years old and at his prime...! And he sure didn't look it. Nobody needed to tell him.  
  
Beremy cautiously approached Neon on the starboard deck. "Boss?"  
  
"What do you want?" he snarled, throwing down his hand.   
  
"The Kelly, it's ready. It's ready, boss."   
  
"Good." Neon cocked the hammer of his glowing gun. "Good, excellent. I'm on it." He grinned through the pain and walked over the rimmed steel gangplank, surrounded by his men.  
  
His men.  
  
His Baddies.  
  
He felt a little remorse about it, even now. Desecartes shouldn't have died. Not so young. Not like that.  
  
As his footsteps clanged in the hallways, he met with the mole. It had been Stever this time. Without his armor, he looked as normal as a Baddie could get.  
  
"Hey, boss. Got the cannonguys sleepin'. And the controlroom es diss way."  
  
"Move it."  
  
Neon followed Stever down the corridor and into the front steerage. He fired a few rounds at the armed guards, each bullet easily flying through the air. He saw each one fly, pierce, and bury itself in the flesh of these men. He saw scarlet running down to the floor. What a mess.   
  
And he laughed. It all happened very quickly. No time to think. No time to breathe.  
  
Once they were down, in a few seconds that could have been hours, Neon touched the captain's temple gently with the cold muzzle of his gun. He grinned, baring his teeth like a wild, starved wolf.  
  
"You wanna die now or help out?"  
  
"You - you'll never get away with this!" cried the captain, trembling like a leaf, so violently. He was crying, and the salty tears left gray tracks down his brazen cheeks.  
  
"Don't be such a baby. Are you going to be kind to your guests here?" Neon gestured at his men casually. "Or is hostility all you know?"  
  
"Go to Hell!" screamed the captain.  
  
Neon sighed. "You shoulda been taught better manners. You ain't being beautiful." He pulled the trigger and looked away as the man collapsed limply.  
  
He looked away...why?  
  
...Why?  
  
2. Did You Forget Something  
  
"Calm down. Adults are prone to many unhappy differences in opinion."  
  
"Why?" he screams, wrestling with Desecartes, uselessly. "Why did you kill him?" This will kill me, he thinks darkly, this will kill me. He doesn't hear Desecartes' angry response. His body racks uncontrollably with sobs as he pounds his weak fists against the boss's rock-hard chest.   
  
And his body, frail, thin, flies back and hits the wall, knocking the breath out of him. He feels himself float down to the ground, hard. He coughs a little blood. And a tooth. He looks up, in horror, terror, and calm. In that order?  
  
He sees Desecartes cocking the shining hammer. Aiming. Carefully, but so fast he almost doesn't seem to consciously move.  
  
The boy now knows what it feels like, being held, frozen, by gunpoint. There's nothing he can do. He's dead all ready. So he becomes calm, and waits. While he waits he sees the body of the captain through the corner of his eye. He blinks, just, and wonders stupidly, where did he go?  
  
Then he notices the pool of blood, now maroon-black, around the captain.  
  
Panic seized him only when he feels his hand blow apart, a shocking, brain-numbing pain, the blood in his eyes, and the lead melting inside his palm.   
  
Why wasn't he dead?  
  
Why wasn't he gone?  
  
"Boss? You 'kay?"  
  
"Shut up, Beremy! You blind?" Neon smacked him and jumped. He landed in the controlseat and bared his teeth once more. "Nice...maybe I'll add this one to my collection." He lowered the heat and acceleration, then pulled the brake. "Have Gadis round up the passengers."  
  
"Yessir." Beremy turned half way. "You sure you OK?"  
  
Neon didn't say a word. He stared through the glass at the starry sky, a thousand diamonds shattered in black. And it was in darkness, amongst these unholy terrors, that the gruesome party would always begin...  
  
-  
  
"Guess how old I am."  
  
"What?" The question seemed to shock Beremy. "Wha - "  
  
"Guess!" Neon stood and tossed his hat to the ground. He ran his muscled hand through his hair. "Guess."  
  
Beremy didn't have a choice. Guess well, Beremy darling.  
  
"...For...ty?"   
  
Neon roared with laughter. It was painful laughter. "Twenty four years off! I could kill you."  
  
"I warn't concentrating, boss!" Beremy babbled. Uselessly. "I didn' mean forty, I meant to sa - in this light - "  
  
"Shut up." Neon sat down on the deck of starboard and watched the sunrises. He fingered his hat and licked his lips. He dreamt of a day he could rest, alone.   
  
Alone? Or...with someone? No, alone. That was the way it was supposed to be. It was the way his body was made.  
  
"Nice swag, boys," announced Neon. He fingered the rubies and trinkets. "But where's the dough?"  
  
Beremy shook his head. "They got none boss! It was just a bunch of rich ghetto people!"  
  
Neon let his fist fall on the table. "Dammit, you girls better get some money next time!...And get Stevers to solder the Kelly to my beautiful fortress." He glanced up. "Are the passengers dead yet?"  
  
"N - no, we're just getting to that."  
  
"Oooh, just sparkly." He cleared his throat. "Lecture time! Listen up. When I got here, boys, Desecartes' fortress was nothing but his own steamer. He was just another thief. I turned this place upside down and got us running. I was the one who really got us the name the Bad Lad Thieves. So we better have money next time, because I could kill you all. I ain't so soft as he was. Got that?"  
  
A thousand cries of "Yeah boss!" echoed throughout the steamer.  
  
A thousand rose petals floated to the ground somewhere far away. Each crimson strip of satin touched his eyelids and kissed his mouth very softly. He was a child, still, lying on the ground with the breeze rustling his dreadlocked brown hair. He lay in the grass. Grass! How soft, cool, sweet. How unfamiliar, too.  
  
He watched the clouds race across the sky, saw twin suns rise and fall, heard the song of the zephyr's breath.  
  
It sang.  
My identity...  
  
Remember your name, Boy? Remember your name we gave you?  
  
A thousand rose petals blackened and crumbled into the ashes.  
  
A past that could not be forgotten...he knew perfectly well how dangerous it could be. A desperation, to drop the chains that held him down, drove him to commit the murder...of his mother and father...something he forced himself to believe was an accident.  
  
Much of his past was left behind with the lives of his parents. There were faint memories, of his first moments with Dark Eyes Desecartes, and when he was the witness of death in action, that dark smoky being who drank thirstily the soul of that captain. And in his early childhood, a pathetic, sickly child would sit alone, silent.  
  
It was what he did not remember that kept him from discovering his name. The fear of a name would kill him, and if not it would drive him insane.  
  
Neon entered the ballroom without a sound. He gazed from one end to the other, studying each motionless, blood-soaked body with a satanic vigor. He was the only one living, the only breathing one here. The smell of death was creeping along. He breathed in the reek. It intoxicated him.  
  
"Excellent job, boys." He sat down in a windowseat, alone, legs spread wide apart and hands falling limply between his knees. He sat in the silent, he sat in the smell, breathing.  
  
And it was the scent of...  
  
Of roses?  
  
"This will catch up to you, one of these days."  
  
Neon jerked his head up. "What the hell - !"  
  
The girl was wearing a yellow trenchcoat with red streaks up and down it, blood?, and another across her cheek, which she wiped away. Yes, blood.   
  
Innocence and purity was lost, stained scarlet. Virginity.  
  
At her feet were a pair of huge leather hiking boots. Leaning casually against the banquet table, she announced, "You certainly will have a mess to clean up."  
  
"I'll drop you right now," he snarled, revealing his gun. "How the hell did you miss my Laddies?"  
  
"I'd tell you...but I'm too frightened at the sight of your gun. To think I'd just become another body...in seconds..." She pursed her thin, olive-painted lips. "Put away the gun and I'll tell you." Stupid girl! Did she really think...did she believe...  
  
"I don't take orders. Especially from women." Neon didn't move.  
  
"Why?" she demanded with a mild mocking tone, picking up a pear and biting into its sweet white meat. "That wasn't an order...it was just a suggestion."  
  
Neon bared his teeth, enraged. "You sure got some rocks!"  
  
"Why don't you shoot me, right now?" Her green eyes glinted, blazed. Tossing her auburn ponytail over her shoulder, she grinned.  
  
"Fine then!" Neon fired a few rounds, but purposefully missed her by a few inches. She didn't move except to chew the pear.   
  
She blinked. "My name's Attim."  
  
Neon glared. "I see you're not afraid of death. Beautiful, just beautiful."  
  
"You aren't going to introduce yourself?" she asked quietly, seriously. "My, my. I thought B. D. Neon was more polite than that. I suppose you can't be him, then." She turned.  
  
"Brilliant Dynamites Neon is only half of who I am," he snapped, standing. Perhaps it was less so. Where had those words come from? "Now, how did you get past my men?"  
  
"Easy." She took another bite. "It got messy, and they are easily drunk on death's wine. I overcame them with this revolver." She spun it on her finger. "Six rounds. Very nice."  
  
"I'll kill you." Who was she? Who did she think she was?  
  
"I only hit one of them. In the shoulder. Five bullets still in here."  
  
Neon closed his eyes. He had a headache. "What do you want from me?" Why couldn't he just waste her? Right now? It would only take a moment. His finger had frozen, glued to the trigger guard.   
  
"Nothing. Not yet. Please." She put the gun down on the table. "I just want to know why you won't shoot me."   
  
That's what I want to know, he thought faintly. Please tell me.  
  
"You're just a kid," he said angrily. That was why. When did he start having problems with age?  
  
"I'm nineteen. You can't be more than thirty yourself."  
  
"How the hell would you know?"  
  
"Your face. Your eyes are old, but your mouth, your smile, is young. You carry a lot more pain than you should have."   
  
Neon sat back down. She was not a threat, not directly.   
  
She pulled a chair away from the table and rested herself. "Please. Don't kill me."  
  
"I won't!" He scowled. "...But I don't know why."  
  
"Fine. So."  
  
Something about her scared him. She'd prodded his tender spot - somewhere between his legs, or perhaps inside his chest? - then stabbed him. And yet he couldn't pull the trigger. It was as if she had caught his soul stark naked.  
  
"So what?" He watched the stars still in the sky.  
  
"What do you need this ship for?"  
  
"I don't need it."  
  
"So, what are you using it for?"  
  
"You ever hear about Dark Eyes Desecartes' fortress?"  
  
"His ship. The Lightauto...he wasn't that big round when I was a kid."  
  
"Well, when I became Mr. Bigtime around here, I built on his fortress. I use pretty ships for the collection."  
  
"I got it. So this is your ship now."  
  
"That's right."  
  
"And I'm pretty much your guest."  
  
"Huh?" He sat up straight.  
  
"And maybe you might want to offer me some shelter against the burning suns tomorrow before I get on to December."  
  
"If I don't kill you first."   
  
-  
  
"Who's the babe?" muttered Beremy.  
  
"Shut up, Beremy! I'm not doing this because I want to."   
  
"...Then why, boss?"  
  
"I have to, dammit! Don't question me."   
  
Attim followed him without looking at the staring Bad Lads. Emotionless, faceless Bad Lads. They frightened her, just a little. What the hell was she doing here? She didn't belong. She stood out, dangerously, painfully.  
  
The "guest room" was no more than a cell with a bunk and faucet.  
  
"There aren't any women's restrooms. So just knock on the guy's restroom if you gotta clean."  
  
"Mm." Attim sat down on her small bunk. "Thanks. Thanks for doing this for me."  
  
"I know it's a mistake." He half-turned. "But for what it's worth...I'm going to try to kill you."  
  
"I feel so much better knowing that, Neon."  
  
He left the room, and then froze in the empty hallway.   
  
"Neon"?!  
  
...Did she just call him..."Neon"?  
  
"Guard the girl," he muttered to Stevers. "Don't let her out, and if she's hungry tell her chowtime's at nine."  
  
"Yes boss!"  
  
3. The Last Time You Were Here  
  
With a little sigh, Neon settled into a huge armchair in the library. Most of the books had long since been thrown out. The only ones remaining were a few copies of "Modern Weaponry", "Pretty Boy Floyd", and "Of Mice and Men", as well as a few other dirty dime novels.  
  
No women had ever been on the ship before except the paid "girlfriends" of a Baddie or two - notorious also for their womanizing habits - and when it was too hot for steamers, that was how the Laddies past time: reading (well, looking at) XXX magazines.  
  
  
Today he was just not in the mood. Besides, he wouldn't read them with the Baddies running around. Should they stumble upon his masturbation, they'd know he had a weakness. That wasn't tolerable in the least. They'd lose their respect. If they had any in the first place.  
  
So he simply relaxed and let his muscles unwind. Which took a while, simply because he had lots and lots of muscles.  
  
"I didn't know Baddies read," said an amused voice from the doorway.  
  
He glanced up. "Read? No, they just look at the pictures."  
  
Attim sauntered over and flopped down in a loveseat (plaid - pink and brown). She flipped through the black magazine and grimaced. "I see. Such fine literature!" She put the magazine back and glanced at the other books.  
  
"'Of Mice and Men'? That was written over a thousand years ago. You read this stuff?"  
  
"I don't. I have Beremy read it."  
  
"You don't...or can't?"  
  
He swore. "F_ck, I can't, okay? How is it that you find a way to..."  
  
She looked away. "I know what you mean."  
  
"And so quickly, too."  
  
She laughed quietly. "I analyze things too much. I say too much. I can't keep my mouth shut and don't think enough...about what it is I'm going to say. It'll be the death of me." She hesitated. "Is that why you let him give you so much lip?"  
  
"There you go again," he growled. "Yes, I like 'Of Mice and Men'. It's sad. Good. Sad." He sighed. "Unfortunately, Beremy is not the world's best reader." Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he said, "What happened to Stevers? He was supposed to be watching your room."  
  
"I told him it was That Time of Month and I needed to go to the bathroom. He's not so smart, you know. He had to go sit down and digest that."  
  
"My men don't know too much about the ways of women. But...is it?"  
  
"Is it what?"  
  
"Is it That Time of Month? For you?"  
  
She glanced at him. "You want to know?"  
  
"No." Neon laid back again. Liar! his conscience screamed. Lying dirty prick! He pushed the thoughts away. She's a kid, he told himself. A little girl. Okay...a little nineteen year old. Whatever...  
  
"Do you want me to read to you?"  
  
"I'm not a baby!" he said indignantly.  
  
"Well, I was just asking," she said huffily. "It's nothing personal, you know." Liar! her own conscience screamed. Lying slut! And she too shoved the thoughts away. No, she thought to herself. Not with him. He was such a damned sexist - a damned sexist - a damned sexist male.  
  
She opened up "Of Mice and Men" and began to read to herself.  
  
"You have no manners, and that's not beautiful."  
  
"Why don't I have manners?" she said, annoyed.  
  
"You sit there reading in my face." His voice was calm, reasonable. She sat there, puzzled, studying his expression. It was hard to tell if he was angry or not. He simply looked...sad, tired, restful?  
  
"I - I'm sorry." She closed the book and began to put it back on the shelf.  
  
"If you're going to read, do it aloud so I can hear."  
  
"Oh!" She laughed. "I see how it is...all right." And she read for the longest time, her voice melting into his mind leaving a brand. Had a woman ever offer read to him? Like he was a freaking kid or something.  
  
The moment she'd reached the fifth chapter, he stood up quickly as if remembering something. "Dinner."  
  
"Oh my gosh. What time is it?"  
  
"We eat at nine."  
  
"I'm guessing you have a bedtime curfew too?"  
  
"Two or three in the morning. Sometimes two or three in the afternoon. Depending." Paused. "You read better than he does."   
  
He strode over to the kitchens. She had to run to keep up.  
  
She was out of breath when they sat down at the benches. There were three rows of long tables. He sat in the middle on at the end. The special chair, she thought bitterly as she settled down beside the Baddies.   
  
They watched her as she clasped her hands quickly and thought, Thanks for this meal, luckily I got one.  
  
They watched her chew. They watched her swallow. They watched her sniff her shotglass.  
  
"Um...is this brandy?" she asked the Baddie next to her in a whisper.  
  
"No...Saguaro Scotch. Brandy is over here."  
  
Her face screwed up. No wonder they're always so horny! she thought to herself. "Ah, you have any milk?"  
  
He shook his head. Then they ALL shook their heads.   
  
"Water?"  
  
"Lemme see." He brought her a glass of iced tea. "Sorry, it's all we got. We have diluted Miller Lites...iced tea..."  
  
"Thanks, this is great." She made a mental note to grab her luggage later for some OJ.  
  
"For once you guys are quiet." Neon chuckled. "It's cuz of the girl, huh? Lighten up, she's not like the sluts that usually stop 'round here. She's much worse."  
  
Attim gave him a dirty look. He folded his hands under his chin and smiled. But after that, the Baddies relaxed and spoke to her as if she were a normal human being.  
  
"You don't dress like 'em girls," one said a little anxiously.  
  
"He's lying. I'm not a...a slut. I was a schoolteacher in December before I went to July for a month. They needed a nurse because of the disaster situation."  
  
"You don't talk 'bout the boss like that," hissed a Baddie. "That ain't beautiful!"  
  
"Hmmph!" She glared at Neon, but he didn't look at her. "He's so arrogant."  
  
"You was a schoolteacher?" demanded another Baddie in disbelief. "Woss they do?"  
  
"Well...we teach children...numbers and letters and such. There was a shortage of 'em, so I was hired without training." She was a little taken aback as the Baddies nodded knowingly at each other.   
  
"Told you they had teachers!" said on triumphantly. "Not all 'em are whores."  
  
Attim laughed. "Definitely not. Only desperate ones. And I'm only nineteen."  
  
"The boss sez only purty ones!"   
  
"He don't like 'em like we does."   
  
"Well," said Attim carefully, "it's easier to - to like them, I suppose, if they're pretty." She paused. "What do you mean, he doesn't like them?"  
  
"He sez they act...well, slutty. He don't want no pleasure." He shrugged (not an easy task, considering the suit he wore).   
  
"He don't enjoy thez company."  
  
"Nope, don't want it atall."   
  
Attim's lips tightened in a private smile. So. Neon had a weakness.  
  
"Some men, where I come from, believe in only enjoying the company of one woman. His wife." They awed in wonder and disbelief. Their conversation carried long into the night.  
  
She heard her name as she walked out of the kitchen yawning.  
  
"Attim."   
  
"What is it?" she snapped, turning. Neon had leaned against the wall, watching her with disinterested eyes.  
  
"Don't give my men ideas." Neon had suddenly become a monster again. He poked her ribs with the muzzle of his gun and didn't move it.  
  
She flinched, and gazed at him darkly.  
  
"They hear so much about what's out there, they might live like they was out there. And I don't like that. It ain't beautiful out there."  
  
"What are you talking about?" she whispered, placing her hands around the gun. She didn't move it either. "It's wonderful out there."  
  
"It's not too bad in here either."  
  
"You live your way." She turned, pushing the gun away. He held it limp and hanging. "I'll live mine."  
  
"What's your way of living?" he demanded as she walked down the hall. She paused, and turned her head.  
  
"My way of living? I don't know."  
  
"Don't tell me you don't know."  
  
"You want to hear it." It was a statement, questioning but a statement all the same.   
  
"I do!" he whispered fiercely. "And f_ck it, I'm sorry." His voice returned to a normal gruffness and he grimaced as if his stomach was boiling.  
  
She smiled painfully up at him from so far away. "You don't sound like the Brilliant Dynamites Neon that I know."  
  
"I'm not." He turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction. "That's only half of who I am."  
  
"I know." She looked as if she was about to say more - so much more! - but the words evaporated before leaving her mouth. " - I know." She turned and went into her room, closing the door behind her.   
  
He watched her, unmoving.  
  
She pressed her back against the cold metal wall, and slid down to the floor, pulling her knees up against her body. She laid her face against her arm, and a pindrop tear crashed to the floor. Damn him! God, she never fell in the love with the knight in shining armor. It was always...the wrong one...the wrong Mr. Right...and never...ever...worked out.  
  
He put his arm against the door and leaned his forehead on it sadly. Rolling his head to the side, he whispered, so that perhaps she could hear.  
  
"That's only half of who I am...Attim."  
  
And perhaps he was not imagining her voice from the darkness, through the whispering fall of rosepetals.  
  
BDneon...BDneonBDneonBDneon, they whispered, like a heartbeat.  
  
"I...I know." But she could not bring herself to say his name. Because, she knew, it was only half of who he truly was.   
  
That night, he sat at the edge of his bed and stared at his hand, trying very hard to remember his name, so that he might tell it to the girl Attim.  
  
Fool! he swore at himself suddenly. "Fool!"  
  
Damned idiot! Why are you so weak all of a sudden? F_ck, f_ck, f_ck, what was wrong? F_ck, f_ck, f_ck, you're so stupid and vulnerable now! He laid his head against his arms and fell asleep. Stupid girl.  
  
Again he dreamed. Consciously, he dreaded the dreams. He tried to run away, but in vain.  
  
Flashing, ripping steel, gunshots, from him, oh God, from his fingers he had shot them both, and their bodies wrinkled into the ground, oh God, he'd killed them.  
  
Mother, Father, but his screams were in vain, oh God, oh God, in vain again. Mommy, Daddy, but the screams for nothing. They had left him, and it was all his fault.  
  
After that day, he never walked so lightly. His back held a special, heavy burden.   
  
He wandered after that day, bearing the heavy souls of his mother and father. He wandered the desert in search of a way to lift the chains...Oh, God, oh God, in vain, so much in vain.   
  
And everything shimmered, and was swallowed.  
  
Your past is only half of who you are. Less than half! ...The evil and hate and anger swallowed him, the world swallowed him and he disappeared.   
  
We forgive, we forgive but cannot forget...  
  
Forget Desecartes, the fire, the men lost, the smell of burning rubber, twisted metal, and forget Dark Eyes Desecartes!  
  
And for the love of God, please, forget Brilliant Dynamites Neon!  
  
The voice of his mother kept on whispering in his ear until he dreamt he was awake, swallowing the nightmares.   
  
A song from long ago rang in his ears. The petals ceased, and the wind dropped. A song...  
  
In a wrinkle of steel I am lost;   
For nothing this desert I've wandered across  
Searching for myself and finding someone else  
It is only half,  
Only half of who I am.  
  
Neon sat up suddenly from his sleep, eyes wide, sweat and tears mingling on his neck. His head spun.  
  
He put on his jacket sans dynamos and pulled on some pants. Wandering through the halls made him feel better. It was as if he were wandering through the desert again.  
  
He did not hear his own footsteps as he found himself at the library door. Because every echo dissipated, drowned out by a singing so beautiful and hurting that it stopped him in his tracks.   
  
"What brings you around?  
Did you lose something the last time you were here?  
You'll never find it now...  
It's buried deep with your identity.  
  
Exit out the back  
And never show yourself again...  
Purchase your ticket and   
Take the last train out of town..."  
  
That sound, that perfectly miserable ringing pitch, would haunt him for the rest of his life, alongside a mental photograph of Desecartes that night, face firelit and wild-eyed, scrabbling out of the steamer, but too late.   
  
Too late, because like a knife stabbing the night, it exploded into a thousand golden rose petals.   
  
He saw her sitting in his chair, knees close to her body, arms wrapped around herself for protection against what lay in the dark awaiting to swallow her whole. Awaiting to swallow her as it had for him.  
  
She was caught in a shivering, dreamlike tremor, alone, afraid.   
  
She saw him enter the room, watched him for a moment, silent, then glanced back at the fire lit in the potbellied stove, and sang again, softer, sadder.  
  
"Control the chaos behind a gun;  
Call it as I see it even if  
I was born deaf, blind and dumb.  
Losers winning big on the lottery,  
Rehab rejects still sniffing glue;  
Constant refutation with myself,  
I'm a victim of a catch-22;  
I have no belief, but I believe..."   
  
Her voice cracked and she began to sob, terrible, silent sobs that quaked in her body and soul alike. She buried her face in her knees and tried to stop, but couldn't.  
  
He came to her side and touched her hair. He let it run through his fingers like water, like icy water.   
  
And the wind sang its own song.  
  
For the life of me, I cannot remember  
What made us think that we were wise and  
We'd never compromise  
For the life of me, I cannot believe  
We'd ever die for these sins  
We were merely freshmen.  
  
He let his fingers run along her cheekbone, gently, more gently than it was possible for a man, a man like B. D. Neon. And was that even who he was? Who he could be?  
  
He let his fingers run along her face down her chin, tilting her weak, trembling smile up. It was a painful, hurting smile, but nothing he could not handle. He was strong, unbelievably strong, with six-pack abs and biceps of steel and...was that enough? No. No, he would bend like he'd overdosed on Novocaine, bend to that monster called Love. Yes, he fell in love right there and lost himself in her painful smile.  
  
He let his hands run down her shoulders and hold her body. She blinked and the tears fell away like a uniform, parallel rain. She held herself for him.  
  
She clutched his arms, stood on shaky legs, and pressed herself to him, never to let go.   
  
They held each other for the longest time, never wanting to let go, reluctant to leave this warm embrace, and slipping from their selves and into each other.  
  
And he realized this would never, never do.  
  
4. You'll Never Find It Now  
  
We've tried to wash our hands of all of this  
We never talk of our lacking relationships  
And how we're guilt stricken sobbing with our  
Heads on the floor  
We fell through the ice when we tried not to   
Slip, we'd say,  
I can't be held responsible  
Cause she was touching her face  
And I won't be held responsible  
Because...she fell in love in the first place.  
  
Breakfast was at four...this new schedule was mindboggling.   
  
Attim felt dirty, grimy. Her hair was matted and thick. What a sight I must be! she thought, smiling wanly. Ugly ugly ugly.  
  
"I need my luggage," she told Neon calmly at the table.  
  
"What for?" he demanded, not looking into her face. He couldn't.   
  
"Please. I have shampoo and conditioner..." She felt a little embarrassed, talking to him about her womanly habits. "...Some soap, clothes."  
  
"Gadis. Get her the luggage."  
  
A minute later, before leaving, she touched his shoulder very gently. "Neon..." in a quiet voice, imploring, begging. For *what*? A whisper? A word? Sex?  
  
He gently shrugged her away and turned his face. She blushed, and her face became angry.  
  
The Laddies were watching, silent.  
  
"Thank you." In a voice that said, God, why are you such an arrogant bastard? Damn! God, please, just look at me! Just look at me!  
  
But he didn't look.  
  
And she disappeared.  
  
"May I..." she said, gesturing at the lock on the door. Gadis nodded and quickly left, setting her luggage down near the bent metal Jacuzzi tub.   
  
She drew the bathwater and stood to lock the door to the bathroom.  
  
There came a knock - a hesitant, fearful knock.  
  
Staring at the closed door, she was silent, pressing her hand to the wall. "Who is it?" she whispered.  
  
"You know." It was Neon.  
  
"Dammit," she shouted, flinging the door open. "God dammit, why are you like that?"  
  
"Like what?" he asked quietly, standing there in the doorway, watching her body through her white towel robe. No, she prayed, not him. Anyone but him!  
  
"You...God, you act so f_cking bad! You think you're so bad, and put on this indifference show, why?" she demanded.  
  
He laughed. "Don't get mad a me so quickly." His smile disappeared. "But last night..."  
  
"What?" she spat. "What, are you about to tell me that it didn't mean anything? God, why do they always say that? It meant nothing, right? Have sex and drop it, because that's all they wanted...and they're so f_cking afraid!"   
  
He reached onto his jacket and withdrew a small vermilion velvet box.  
  
She blinked away tears. "Oh, God." He opened it and slipped a ring onto her finger.   
  
"It's a Lapis Lazuli, cabochon cut on platinum. Traditionally symbolizes the sky and its deepness...before the Pandora's Box was opened...of how deep love could go." He held her hand, and shut his eyes. "I bought it...didn't pick it up in a haul or anything. I don't know, maybe that's important.  
  
"Our relationship...it can't be like that. I'm not like that. About the sex." He took a deep breath and rested his elbow on the wall. "Yes, I'm afraid. If I'm like them, weak to love, I'll loose their respect. And I'll have to kill them. I don't want to, but I'll have to.   
  
"I've trained half these guys personally. I know each personally. I don't want to, and for the love of God, you have to believe me." He wiped away a tear. "I am so f_cking afraid. So Goddamn f_cking afraid."  
  
She stared deep into his dark blue eyes for a moment, and touched a dynamo on his shoulder. She ran her fingertips along the neon strips, down the side of his painful face, down his naked chest.   
  
She took his hand and pulled him in, closing the door behind him. She closed her eyes as he kissed her slowly, softly, the noise of the water fading away and only hearing her own heart race and pulse murmur.   
  
Somehow they found their way towards the tub, but never lost the liplock.   
  
Somehow, two mouths still touched, only pulled away for a moment to slip together again, a sticky, melted-sweet like chocolate.  
  
Somehow, Neon undid the knots in her bathrobe. It floated to the floor around her ankles. Somehow, he slipped out of the guns on his shoulders, the dynamos. They clattered down on the floor.   
  
Somehow, they found out in themselves together, hot and weary of the world and alone. And she lay in his arms, peaceful and weightless; between the secret kisses, secret passion, they loved.   
  
She kissed him, loved him, searched him.  
  
Searched his face for emotion, gazing into his old, old, tired old eyes, searched his terrifying smile, his painful, beautiful, haunting, evil smile.  
  
And she said aloud this name out of the blue, not knowing exactly where the words came from, knowing only that they were whispered in her ear by the wind:  
  
Gunther Leigh Willeres. Who the hell...oh. Oh.  
  
And he knew, and he remembered, and he cried openly. He sat down on the floor against a wall, pulling on his dynamos and tears trickling down his face.   
  
In a flash of light and crackle of electricity,   
The desert has been lit, a thousand glorious  
Stripes of my own life spent  
Searching for myself and finding someone else   
But it was only half,  
Only half of who I was.  
I know now,  
Only half of who I am  
Is the half she won't recognize  
Or love.  



End file.
